slickers and floppy vinyl hats, the girls grinned and tilted their heads
expectantly, probably figuring that his explosive entrance was the start
of a joke or one of Daddy’s silly impromptu performances.
“Get them out of here,” he croaked at Paige, trying to sound calm,
defeated by his coarse voice and all-too-evident tension.
“What’s happened to you?”
“Now,” he insisted, “right away, take them across the street to Vic and
Kathy’s.”
The girls saw the gun in his hand. Their grins vanished, and their eyes
widened.
Paige said, “You’re bleeding. What–”
“Not me,” he interrupted, belatedly realizing that he’d gotten the blood
of The Other all over his shirt when he’d fallen atop the man.
“I’m okay.”
“What’s happened?” Paige demanded.
Yanking open the connecting door to the garage, he said, “We’ve had a
thing here.” His throat hurt when he talked, yet he was all but
babbling in his urgent desire to get them safely out of the house,
incoherent for perhaps the first time in his word-obsessed life. “A
problem, a thing, Jesus, you know, like a thing that happened, some
trouble”
“Marty–”
“Come on, over to the Delorios’ place, all of you.”
He stepped across the threshold, into the dark garage, hit the Genie
button, and the big door rumbled upward. He met Paige’s eyes.
“They’ll be safe at the Delorios’ place.”
Not bothering to pull her coat off the rack, Paige shepherded the girls
past him, into the garage, toward the rising door.
“Call the police,” he shouted after her, wincing at the pain that a
shout cost him.
She glanced back at him, her face lined with worry.
He said, “I’m all right, but we got a guy here, shot bad.”
“Come with us,” she pleaded.
“Can’t. Call the police.”
“Marty–”
“Go, Paige, just go!”
She moved between Charlotte and Emily, took each of them by the hand,
and led them out of the garage, into the downpour, turning to look back
at him only once more.
He watched until they reached the end of the driveway, checked left and
right for traffic, and then started across the street.
Step by step, as they moved away through the silver curtains of rain,
they looked less like real people and more like three retreating
spirits. He had the disconcertingly present feeling that he would never
see them alive again, he knew it was nothing more than an irrational
adrenaline hyped reaction to what he’d been through, but the fear took
root in him and grew nevertheless.
A cold wet wind invaded the deepest reaches of the garage, and the
perspiration on Marty’s face felt as if it had been instantly
transformed into ice.
He stepped back into the kitchen and pushed the door shut.
Though he was shivering, half freezing, he craved a cold drink because
his throat burned as if it harbored a kerosene fire.
Maybe the man in the foyer was dying, having convulsions right that
second, or a heart attack. He was in damned bad shape. So it would be
a good idea to get in there and watch over him, in case CPR was
necessary before the authorities arrived. Marty didn’t care if the guy
died–wanted him dead–but not until a lot of questions were answered
and these recent events made at least some sense.
But before he did anything else, he had to get a drink to soothe his
throat. Right now, every swallow was torture. When the cops arrived,
he would have to be prepared to do a lot of talking.
Tap water didn’t seem cold enough to do the trick, so he opened the
refrigerator, which he could have sworn was a lot emptier than it had
been earlier in the day, and grabbed a carton of milk. No, the idea of
milk made him gag. Milk reminded him of blood because it was a bodily
fluid, which was ridiculous, of course, but the events of the past hour
were irrational, so it followed that some of his reactions would be
irrational as well. He returned the carton to the shelf, reached for
the orange juice, then saw the bottles of Corona and sixteen-ounce cans
of Coors. Nothing had ever looked more desirable than those chilled